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Ian Player was a legend in wildlife conservation. He started the Wilderness Leadership School and was a prime mover in rescuing the southern race of White Rhino (Ceratotherium simum) from extinction. I had forgotten about his involvement with the Duzi Marathon. Wasn't he the founder of it ?
3 years agoHi Jean Marc
Finishing the Comrades in the top 1.25% of runners is a very respectable result. Re Dusi paddlers transitioning to the Comrades in my time they introduced the Ian Player trophy for the best combined time in the two events in a calendar year. Ian the big brother of Gary Player the golfer was one of the participants in the first race and may have been the winner. He joined the Natal Parks Board as a ranger and ended up quite high in that organisation.
I learnt to keep my toenails short from long distance running. Neglecting to do so meant you were certain to lose a toenail or two on ultra marathon runs.
3 years agoThe Duzi is a toughee and far more competitve. Comrades is almost a just a verrry long fun run (apart from the guys at the sharp end of the race). Many of the top Duzi paddlers (Danny Biggs springs to mind) were also great comrades runners. I only ran three Comrades with my best finish being 6:43 which placed me 172 out of just over fifteen thousand runners.
3 years agoI can’t believe you got that much mileage from a pair of socks! You must do a much better job with trimming your nails than I do.
3 years agoHi Jean Marc
20 years is not bad for a pair of socks.
Living in Pietermaritzburg I did the Duzi kayak marathon half a dozen times in the nineteen sixties but never got around to a Comrades.
I am enjoying your journal.
Fantastic.
3 years agoFunny, the first (and so far only) time I saw leafcutter ants was also in Palenque--in 1983. Good to see they are still thriving there.
3 years agoThanks Bill !
3 years agoDragon fruit!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitaya
We saw one of these in Tucson last winter, an accidental well north of its normal range.
3 years agoThanks Scott. The money shot should have been when it had crept all the way down the branch and nabbed an insect off the surface of the water but at that moment it head was behind a twig on the branch.
3 years agoWhat a wonderful shot!
3 years agoIn retrospect, it wasn't the word I wanted to use. It was a word we used when I was a child instead of nauseous yet it doesn't have quite the same meaning.
3 years ago
Visiting Flores and Tikal 20 years ago is one of our favorite travel memories. It wasn’t too touristy yet then. Our guide lives on the island and picked us up on her punt to ferry us out to the island and her home where we stayed the night. The next morning she drove us up to Tikal for the day. We ended it sitting on top of the ruins watching the parrots come to roost in the canopy below us as the sun went down.
3 years agoWe drove back to her home, the empty road filled with figures walking in the dusk. Homes all along the highway were dark inside, save for the illumination from their cars sitting outside shining their headlights through the front doors.